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TW Hill & Son, Farmers and Contractors, Leicestershire – by Nick Fone
CEMOS for Tractors
“Better than an operator”
Ollie Hill
For the last 18 months CEMOS for Tractors has proved itself in the field, helping Leicestershire father-and-son team Stephen and Ollie Hill cover more ground while burning less fuel. Farmers and contractors, they undertake a broad range of work from heavy cultivations and crop establishment to mowing, baling and wrapping. As such they need versatile prime movers capable of undertaking pretty much any task. “In the past we’ve tended to run a whole plethora of older tractors, each machine with its own job to do from lightweight topwork to heavyweight cultivations,” explains Ollie. “But a couple of years ago with some of the front-runners beginning to show their age we decided we needed to rationalise things, swapping out four old-timers for a pair of shiny new CLAAS tractors – an ARION 650 and an AXION 870. “While this made sense on paper, being considerably lighter than our old heavyweight tugs we were concerned about how well the new tractors would get on with our heavy draft cultivators on our heavy clay ground. Of course when it came to it, with their stepless gearboxes, the right weights on the nose and some decent rubber those concerns proved unfounded.” However with these two expected to undertake a much wider range
of jobs than the machines they replaced, getting the ballasting, tyre pressures and transmission settings right has become much more of an essential issue. So when Ollie was approached by his local CLAAS dealer to trial a new system to help with this he jumped at the chance. “We were really impressed by the way the stepless CMATIC transmission delivered the power to the ground but I was keen to get any extra guidance I could in setting them up right. The 870 came fitted with 500kg of rear wheel weights plus 1500kg and 900kg blocks to go on the front linkage. That gave us quite a lot of opportunity for tweaking things alongside being able to drop pressures as low as 0.4bar in the Michelin Machbibs.
CEMOS SANITY CHECK “What the CEMOS system provides is a sanity check about how best to go about making these changes. “When I set off doing a new job, for example with our combination sub-soiler cultivator, I do a couple of runs with the tractor set as I think best,” explains Ollie. “During this time the CEMOS computer is monitoring everything and then makes an assessment as to how things could be improved. It might suggest altering engine transmission droop settings or trying diff-lock. Alternatively it could propose altering how much air is in the tyres or how much weight is on the nose. “Almost always making the changes results in the tractor going better – either covering more ground or using less diesel.”
